


House Hunting

by Marta



Category: House-Hunting - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Gap Filler, Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-14
Updated: 2009-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:12:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marta/pseuds/Marta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Fatty confronts his greatest fear, and comes to a decision. (Post-Quest.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	House Hunting

Freddy wondered, sometimes, just why Merry and Pippin had been so quick to move into Crickhollow, after the Troubles. They were heroes, and heirs to the Took and the Master, besides; surely their places were in their family smials. He wondered if there was any truth to the stories whispered around tavern tables, about a fearful night in the Barrow-downs. It would certainly explain why neither hobbit slept well with earth above his head. Or had they just needed a new place to rest their heads, a place not so full of old memories?

Freddy could  understand that, in either case, for there was truth in that stale joke that he was  _fatty no more_. Oh, he’d avoided the Barrows well enough (and other far more dreadful adventures in far more foreign lands, he was sure), but those four had only spent a night in that awful place. Freddy had lasted months in the Lock-holes; and it might not have been the Barrows, but it was something to grow hair on your toes, no mistake. 

Every night, he’d paced off the dank cell they jokingly called a room: three hobbit-strides from the door to the rag-pile that served him as bed, then five more along the wall to the chamberpot, and then back again. It was something to do, some way to keep time; they’d taken his pocket-watch first thing, and he had no window so he couldn’t mark the days that way. They couldn’t keep him from pacing, for they couldn’t watch him all the time, and it proved to him that time still moved forward. ‘Til Help came. 

But there was a trade-off, aye, there always was. As he’d walked his cell he’d seen the walls coming closer and closer. Even in his sleep, he saw them: dust and plaster closing in on him, blocking out the lamp-light ‘til the darkness near smothered him. And the walls of a smial weren’t so different, not truly…

He envied his friends, wished he had their courage – but he also wondered whether it wasn’t easier for them, somehow. Merry and Pippin were heroes of a sort, to be sure, but a different sort than Fatty had been. Than Freddy was. They were not the brave hero of the Battle of the Scary Hills, the one the old hands had raised pints to at the Golden Perch. It wasn’t them who had gone to the Lock-holes rather than name any of those who’d escaped – and even now, had to live with that reputation.

Still, if those foolhardy Brandybucks and Tooks could manage it, could stand up to their families – if they could claim a house where they’d be able to sleep at night – well, Fatty would see that the Bolgers weren’t outdone. And his uncle Fil had a fine family, he’d put the smial to good use. He hardly needed all that space anyway; what he needed was air, and a view of the surrounding country.

With that thought, Fredegar Bolger grabbed his hat and his walking stick. It was time to find himself a house.


End file.
